39 years ago - Atros becomes an outspoken advocate for unification of sector 666. He takes the name Atrocitus.

38 years ago - Atrocitus is given a Red Lantern battery by the Controllers, an experiment in manipulating Anti-Oan energy. His followers vie for his favor to become his Red Lanterns, rage-fueled warriors whose power consumes them. The Red Lanterns begin to unify Sector 666 under him and his regime.

18 years ago - Atrocitus's Red Lanterns are called out for their violence by Bro'Dee, a priest from Sector 666.

7 years ago - Atrocitus takes a group of lost Green Lanterns hostage. Hal Jordan, Killowog & Ch'p venture into Sector 666 to save them. They are assisted by Bro'Dee. Ganthet of the Guardians of Oa grants him a special Blue Lantern designed specifically to heal the damage of a Red Lantern.

3 years ago - Atrocitus develops a way to make the conversion into a Red Lantern permanent and non-lethal. He is stopped by Bro'Dee & Kyle Rayner, who destroy his central power battery & force him to relinquish much of his control of Sector 666.

If you've been reading the larger site, you've read several times in several places that we aren't doing the multi-colored Lantern Corps that debuted in Green Lantern vol 4 in the mid-aughts. As we've said multiple times, it dilutes what makes the Green Lantern Corps and human Green Lantern heroes special by reducing every other element of the Green Lantern mythology to cookie-cutter versions of the same idea over and over.

So if that's the case, what is Atrocitus doing here? He's one of the main characters to come out of this story arc, so why adapt him at all? The inspiration actually came from the animated Green Lantern Series from 2011. They did a good job of repackaging Atrocitus into a character we could use. Once we decided to adapt that version of the character, what we came up with gives is a really cool subplot to run within the larger Green Lantern story.

Atrocitus's Comic History

Atrocitus appeared for the first time in 2007 in Green Lantern #25. The book was neck-deep in new characters as it introduced a half-dozen new Lantern Corps, populating them with an artist sketchbook full of random alien designs with clever little descriptions to make them somewhat distinct. Some of them where more interesting than others, but the leaders of each group obviously got the most attention. Atrocitus was the leader of the Red Lanterns; the Lantern Corps fueled by rage. Their particular schtick was that a red goo would spray out of their mouth were using their powers. The Red Lanterns would continue to be a major part of both Green Lantern comics and the larger world of DC as the idea of all these power rings zipping about the universe became a major plot driver in the company-wide crossovers of the late 2000's.

The reset of DC's entire line in 2011's New 52 included a book called Red Lanterns, which detailed Atrocitus's continued adventures as the leader of the Red Lanterns. It would go on to introduce different human Red Lanterns, including Guy Gardner. The book ended in 2015.

Our Atrocitus Story

What we liked about the animated series was the introduction of a secluded part of space outside the Guardians jurisdiction where Atrocitus ruled a intergalactic death army. There's something intensely metal about that. This is a great villain to introduce into Green Lantern's story, we just have to carve away all the concepts that don't work in the tale we're telling.

Rather than creating a whole Lantern Corp, we equipped Atrocitus with a singular artifact; a Red Lantern Battery built by the Controllers as an early experiment in their Anti-Oan energy weapons. We really like the idea that he can create 'Red Lantern' followers that are fueled by rage and constantly spewing blood everywhere, who are quickly consumed by their power, dieing in his service.

We've taken a few core idea from Atrocitus's backstory and built out a whole sequence of events involving 'Sector 666', the forbidden sector. We get to create a whole adventure with Hal and a few Lantern allies, as well as a later adventure for Kyle. We've even used this story microcosm as a way to introduce one more character from another Lantern Corps; the Blue Lantern Saint Walker.

Dexx-Starr

Our version of the story basically makes all the other Red Lanterns non-canon, and in almost every case that's absolutely fine. Some of them may have their fans, but ultimately they just don't matter that much.

The one exception is Dex-Starr, the earth cat with so much rage he attracted a Red Lantern ring. There's something great about this character, but we didn't really want to go so far out of out way to try to include him. If you REALLY want him, you could imagine that the Kyle Rayner story based on Atrocitus attempting to make the Red Lantern conversion permanent had one lone successful subject. How did a earth cat get OUT there? We'll leave that one up to you.